He was not so soft, this yacht man, as I used to think. He stood the rough winter trips with me well. I learned to like him--rarely. I could talk to him about the work, and he'd try to understand--as so few of his kind would. He understood better after he'd been some trips with me, and I came to love him--almost. When I was away on those trips, my wife would be at home--until the time her aunt took sick. I recollect her speakin' of her aunt--or did I? No matter. She lived out West somewhere, and didn't want her to marry me--or so I made out. I didn't go too deep into it. When she hinted that she hadn't told me of her aunt before for fear of hurtin' my feelin's, it was enough. Women feel things more than men, and no use to rake 'em over. I knew I was a rough man, not the kind many women folks might take to--I never quite got over Her likin' me--nor did a whole lot of people--and 'twas natural a woman of the kind her aunt must be, didn't like her marryin' a man like me. But no matter; her aunt was bein' reconciled, she used to write me, and when your wife is makin' up to her only livin' relative, and she dyin', it's no time to be exactin'. So she stayed on in the West. I've forgotten where--Chicago maybe?--too far, anyway, for me to go to her, because I had to stand ready in my business to leave at a minute's notice. A gale c'd rise in an hour, the coast be cluttered with wrecks in one day. And there were so many big people, steamboat people and big shippin' firms, who counted on me, would 'a' been disappointed, you see, if I wasn't on deck when needed. It's something, after all, to be honest in your work all your life, not leave it to careless helpers. He lost his interest in the wreckin' after a while, and natural, too. He hadn't to build up his family's name or provide a livin' for anybody by it. And her aunt still lingered, she wrote. And then I wrote that I would give up the business if she said so, and go out there. I could begin again--there was great shippin' on the lakes--better sell out a hundred wreckin' plants than be so much apart, for it's terrible to be comin' from the sea and never find the woman afore ye. But she telegraphed to wait, she would be home soon, and she wanted to see me, too, about something partic'lar. That was the night before the Portland breeze--in the year o' the war with Spain--yes, '98 that would be, the year the _Portland_ went down on Middle Bank with all on board. A foolish loss that, and nobody ever went to jail for it; but it's mostly that way, nobody sufferin' for it--but the families o' the lost ones--when passenger ships go down at sea.